For me, personally, it means I’m leaving X79 to go to Z77. Ivy Bridge features native PCIe 3.0 and with quad-SLI 680s (soon to be 4GB units) I’m not going to sacrifice all of that bandwidth. I can give up CPU (for gaming) – I can’t afford to give up the bandwidth. My Rampage IV Extreme with 3960x gets extremely unstable if I use the PCIe 3.0 registry hack. It’s a bummer…but I’m also excited to build another new PC. 🙂

EDIT: [08/13/12] Slight update…since NVIDIA’s forums have been taken down (they were apparently hacked) some of the above links do not work. Try this link for more information. Also – I got this to work on my ASUS Rampage IV Extreme board. It took an updated BIOS and running it with SLI disabled and only one monitor. If you try to run it otherwise you can run into problems. It has worked flawlessly for weeks now.

Yup. I tested it. Same exact results on my system as the registry fix – because it’s the same thing. That’s what that screen shot illustrates. 🙂

I don’t know what to say – my Rampage IV Extreme + 3960x does not work with the “fix” – so I’m selling it all and going Z77. Need PCIe 3.0 for bandwidth with quad-SLI. The system will boot but it hangs or crashes when logging into Windows. I can only fix the hack by forcing “GEN2” (aka PCIe 2.0) in my BIOS – since Windows Safe Mode doesn’t load the video registry correctly to change it.

Just out of curiosity. When you have tried to get into windows after enabling PCIe 3.0, did you have an OC on your CPU enabled? (have you tried with it on stock?). I have heard somewhere from an Asus Engineer, that if people have a BLK clock of over 105mhz, it can cause this issue.

Also on another note (if you still were unable to boot on stock ghz), I wonder if you were able to get in using your 3930k.

Nvidia say the signal timings are off even using different CPU’s (yes there are only 3 for x79). I find it odd, how others (ie. Vega) have 4way SLI (GTX 680) working on the RIVE with the registry fix (check here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0-xcxAvu54). He had issues at first (same as you) – couldn’t get into Windows. This was because of his multiple screen setup. Are you using multiple screens?, if so – have you tried just one?.

My BCLK is stock. I am OC’d (conservatively) @ 4.5 GHz with 1.42v – validated by IntelBurnTest v2 at Maximum RAM. There are variances for my system – for one, I have all DIMMS populated.

I refuse to test my 3930k with my RIVE because it’s just not worth the hassle. I want to use my system that I purchased that has PCIe 3.0 support – I don’t want to go through all of these crazy steps/hacks to use it . The Z77 gear is here today. Just waiting for all of my 680 4GB units.

I run 1x BenQ XL2420TX and 2x BenQ XL2420T for 5760×1080/120hz NV Surround. Again – not going to disable monitors and futz with this BS when a simple solution is to ditch X79 all together. I made the decision even before NVIDIA came out with this verdict…the verdict just validated it. 🙂

You ‘could’ have got the fix to work. Vega still managed to use it in the end with multiple monitors like yourself (as shown in the video).
He shows multiple monitors and changing the registry keys in Windows on 4x 680’s (and the difference it made). I’m not 100% sure on how he fixed it, but I expect it’s something to do with a current install with multiple displays not liking the fix and would probably need a fresh install of Windows (possibly enabling one display at a time. But once it’s enabled, it doesn’t seem to cause issues.

Probem with going z77 for quad-SLI is your not going to get enough native lanes (16 vs 40). PLX isn’t great and means you will get more latency. Still it’s hassle free, but I would have given the thumbs up to x79 for quad cards (and got the fix working)- but I understand it’s a PITA and Nvidia really should be supporting the flagship platform better.

Thanks for all of your help. 🙂 I just noticed (from my HardOCP posting – http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1700629) that ASUS released a new BIOS on 6/15 that addresses PCIe 3.0. Maybe that will fix things. I’ll give that a shot before opening my Z77 gear. If it works, I’ll stick with X79 and return the Z77. If not, I’ll continue on my Z77 path. It’s fun to work with new hardware, if nothing else. The PLX issue is a concern. The other concern is eBaying all my X79 stuff. Heh. No fun!

In all the cases I have seen it not working on RIVE, it is with multiple monitors (and only boot problems). I would ask Vega what he did. You’ll be better off with x79 PCI 3.0 working than z77 with those 4 680’s, so I would try and find the answer.